Category: Intermediate

A student starts to teach their dog to “stay.” Five minutes later, they’re trying to get their dog to stay while they walk all the way across the room.

It’s frustrating for everyone involved. The owner, because their dog inevitable doesn’t hold the stay. The dog, because he doesn’t understand what he’s being asked to do. And the trainer, because we know that explaining why the dog failed is going to be rough.

Which is why I’ve come up with an analogy I love for exactly this kind of situation.

By having your dog behind you, you become a barrier for your dog and whatever you are trying to keep your dog away from, Or perhaps it’s something or someone you are trying to keep away from your dog.
Perhaps you’re trying to keep someone from petting your reactive dog.

It is a polite way to position your dog while you tell someone you don’t want them to pet your dog.

Dog owners often like to make things progressively harder on their dogs, because they know they’re working toward a GOAL and they want to get there — but our dogs are more like kids, and if the math problems just continue to get harder, they give up.

In order to keep our dogs in the “game” and working with us, it’s important to alternate hard work with easy work.